Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Chu Berry was born Leon Brown Berry on September 13, 1908 in Wheeling, West Virginia. Following in his piano playing stepsister’s footprints, Chu became interested in music at an early age, playing alto saxophone at first with local bands. It wasn’t until he heard Coleman Hawkins was he inspired to take up the tenor.
Most of Berry’s abbreviated career was spent in the sax sections of major swing bands of Sammy Stewart, Benny Carter, Teddy Hill, Fletcher Henderson and Cab Calloway. He recorded with Count Basie, Bessie Smith, Mildred Bailey, The Chocolate Dandies, Teddy Wilson, Billie Holiday and Lionel Hampton among others.
Although Berry based his style on Hawkins’ playing, the older man regarded Berry as his equal, saying, “‘Chu’ was about the best.” His mastery of advanced harmony and his smoothly-flowing solos on up-tempo tunes influenced such young innovators as Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker and Chu was one of the jazz musicians who took part in the jam sessions at Minton’s Playhouse in New York that led to the development of bebop.
Collaborating with lyricist Andy Razaf, he composed “Christopher Columbus”, a tune that was the last important hit recording of the Fletcher Henderson orchestra. From 1937 to 1941 he would be associated with Cab Calloway until his death from complications stemming from a car accident. On October 30, 1941, tenor saxophonist Chu Berry passed away. He was just 33 years old. Author Jack Kerouac immortalized him in the beginning of his novella “The Subterraneans”.
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Daily Dose OF Jazz…
George Mraz was born Jiří Mráz on September 9, 1944 in Pisek Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, now the Czech Republic. He began his musical studies on violin at age seven and started playing jazz in high school on alto saxophone. He attended the Prague Conservatory in 1961 studying bass violin and graduating in 1966. During that time he was performing with the top jazz groups in Prague.
His first introduction to jazz was through the Voice Of America radio and Louis Armstrong which opened him to a vast new world of possibilities across the ocean. After finishing his studies George moved to Munich and played clubs and concerts throughout Germany and Middle Europe with Benny Bailey, Carmel Jones, Leo Wright, Mal Waldron, Hampton Hawes, Jan Hammer and others.
Mraz was greatly influenced by Ray Brown, Scott LaFaro, Paul Chambers, and Ron Carter. In 1968 he ventured to Boston on a scholarship to the Berklee School of Music and played at Lennie’s on the Turnpike and the Jazz Workshop with such artists as Clark Terry, Herbie Hancock, Joe Williams and Carmen McRae. By ’69 he was playing with Dizzy Gillespie and then on the road with Oscar Peterson for two years followed by a six- year residency with the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra.
From the late seventies on he worked with Stan Getz, New York Jazz Quartet, Chet Baker, Hank Jones, Paul Motian, Zoot Sims, Bill Evans, John Abercrombie, Joe Lovano, Carmen McRae, Joe Henderson, Tommy Flanagan and the list of jazz luminaries is to long to elaborate. He was a member of the New York Jazz Quartet and Quest. Bassist and alto saxophonist George Mraz continues to perform, record and tour.
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James Earl Clay was born on Sept. 8, 1935 in Dallas, Texas. While in school Clay played alto saxophone, became a professional musician, and played with Booker Ervin and other local Dallas bands. An early associate of Ornette Coleman, he also played with Don Cherry and David “Fathead” Newman.
He later went to California where he played in 1957 in Red Mitchell’s quartet and on recordings with Lawrence Marable but by the end of the year was back in Dallas. Clay served in the Army in 1959.
As a leader he recorded for the Antilles, Jazz West, Fresh Sounds, Polygram and OJC record labels. Jazz flautist, tenor and alto saxophonist James Clay, known for his appealing tone and bop style passed away in Dallas on January 1, 1994.
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Herman Riley was born on August 31, 1933 in Algiers, Louisiana across the river from the French Quarter in New Orleans into a family setting where his mother Nell Brooks was a hard swinging jazz and gospel singer. He attended the L.B. Landry High School and under the influence of his music teacher William Houston, heard local jazzmen playing at assemblies and school dances.
In his mid-teens Herman took to the saxophone after seeing Illinois Jacquet but inspired by the locals he organized a jazz combo with his friends and took part in his school orchestra and marching band. It wasn’t long before he “was on the street, playing professionally”, taking short-lived gigs with R&B bandleaders like Ivory Joe Hunter, Guitar Slim and Paul Gayten. By the time he was majoring on cello and bassoon at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Riley had completed eight years of study of European music.
After two non-musical years in the US army and a short spell in New York, he ended up in San Diego, California, pursuing his music studies at City College, while playing in clubs and taking private lessons. After winning an award as outstanding solo artist at the 1962 California colleges’ jazz festival at Monterey, Riley felt confident enough to make for Los Angeles.
Recruited for some of LA’s better jazz groups, he played and recorded with Dolo Coker, Bobby Bryant, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Martha and the Vandellas, The Supremes, Della Reese, Sammy Davis Jr, Gene Ammons, Bobby Hutcherson and Blue Mitchell among others. Over the course of his illustrious career Riley added flute, oboe, cor anglais, clarinet and bass clarinet to the arsenal of saxophones that he carried to meet the demands of studio sessions. He toured with Quincy Jones, Benny Carter, Lionel Hampton, Mercer Ellington, Monk Montgomery, Jimmy Smith, Etta James, as well as with the Count Basie, Bill Berry and Juggernaut big bands. Quiet in manner and self-effacing, bebop and blues tenor saxophonist Herman Riley died on April 14, 2007 at the age of 73.
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Jerry Dodgion, born August 29, 1932 in Richmond, California, played alto saxophone in middle school and began working around the San Francisco area in the Fifties. He played in bands with Rudy Salvini, John Coppola, Chuck Travis and Gerald Wilson. He worked with the Vernon Alley Quartet, accompanying Billie Holiday in 1955.
Dodgion also played with Benny Carter and Red Norvo in the 50s, Benny Goodman and Oliver Nelson in the Sixties, Thad Jones, and Mel Lewis from 1965-1979, as well as Herbie Hancock, Duke Pearson, Blue Mitchell, Count Basie and Marian McPartland, as well as Etta Jones, Johnny Hammond, Yusef Lateef, Shirley Scott and numerous others.
A long career as a sideman, Jerry recorded up to 2004 only two dates as leader or co-leader: two tracks in 1955 for Fantasy Records with Sonny Clark on piano and an album in 1958 for World Pacific together with Charlie Mariano.
Dodgion’s first true release as a bandleader came in 2004 with an ensemble called The Joy of Sax, featuring saxophonists Frank Wess, Brad Leali, Dan Block, Jay Brandford, Mike LeDonne, Dennis Irwin and Joe Farnsworth. The saxophonist and flautist continues to perform and record.
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